Parenting experiences

“From the moment Coraline was born, Kevin had an abundance of energy and love. His happiness and positivity was what I needed when I was in shock. The tears began, and continued for 3 days as I thought, “I cannot do this”, “I am afraid of this”. “I am afraid of our lives being anything other than what I have been picturing”. “Coraline? Us?” But then those corners of my thoughts were softened by Coraline’s face, her sweetness, her little noises - I was in love.

I think the thing about shock is that it’s temporary. A piece of it will be left in my heart, but that’s made me a deeper, more connected person. You just begin living your life, and absorbing and adjusting to the new reality, because that is your life. The days become months and the months become a year. Our life is great.

Coraline is our first child. On one hand, our parenting journey is very similar to other parents – I discovered the love everyone talks about, I spend time reading parenting books or googling sleeping, feeding and so on. On the other hand, I had to adjust my expectations, address some of my thinking patterns and accept that she will reach milestones a little later. The journey is also different in terms of the number of appointments and amount of support we receive for Coraline to reach her milestones. We have Cardiology and Paediatric appointments every few months. Her Speech therapist, Physiotherapist and Portage worker come to our house. We go for Audiology checks, and have recently begun weekly sign language, and speech therapy classes.

We are lucky to have so much support and I love all the people we meet and am grateful for all that they tell us. This brings me to my next point: it’s all about attitude.

Love, acceptance and gratitude. Those are the three key things I think. I have adored these past months as a family with Coraline. My advice to other parents would be those three words: love, acceptance, gratitude. Coraline has a gorgeous personality; happy, content, a great sleeper, a fabulous roller, and she is extremely well dressed, thanks to all our friends’ gifts!